So Much Light

Mary Oliver writes that maybe death is not darkness after all, but so much light wrapping itself around us that we grow weary of looking and shut our eyes.

I have been thinking about that line since my mom died.

There is so much language around death that feels heavy and shadowed. But what I experienced in those final days with my mom was not darkness. It was intensity. It was more than I could take in. The physical reality of her body shutting down. The blood. The breath. The tenderness. The fact of it.

And underneath all of that, something so vast it felt unbearable.

There were moments in that room that felt too intense to look at directly. As if something was happening that my eyes and nervous system could barely process. I did not experience darkness. I experienced something that felt bigger than the story of a life ending.

So much light.

I do not pretend to understand what that means. I only know that the word feels closer to the truth than anything else I have found.

Mary Oliver wrote a poem I have returned to again and again:

White Owl Flies Into and Out Of The Field
—Mary Oliver

Coming down
out of the freezing sky
with its depths of light,
like an angel,
or a buddha with wings,
it was beautiful
and accurate,
striking the snow and whatever was there
with a force that left the imprint
of the tips of its wings —
five feet apart — and the grabbing
thrust of its feet,
and the indentation of what had been running
through the white valleys
of the snow —

and then it rose, gracefully,
and flew back to the frozen marshes,
to lurk there,
like a little lighthouse,
in the blue shadows —
so I thought:
maybe death
isn’t darkness, after all,
but so much light
wrapping itself around us —
as soft as feathers —
that we are instantly weary
of looking, and looking, and shut our eyes,

not without amazement,
and let ourselves be carried,
as through the translucence of mica,
to the river
that is without the least dapple or shadow —
that is nothing but light — scalding, aortal light —
in which we are washed and washed
out of our bones.

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